36 Things: 34

34. Publish guest postings on porn and sexual addiction.

See: Guest Posts On Pornography and Sexual Addiction

I had reservations about using my blog to publish guest posts about these topics, first because I wasn't sure myself how I felt about them (and the wide slinging definition of the term "addiction") and I wasn't sure how my audience would receive them. In the span of the series I had to take many walks around the block to remind myself why I wanted to do this "thing" in the first place.

I wanted education.

And I was educated.

For the first time ever, in my four years of mothering, I would read the guest posts and feel a deep sense of protection for my children. I suddenly felt like a "lioness at the gate" mother, ready to stand solidly against tactics aimed to hurt my children. In the weeks of publishing those stories I finally became in touch with the side of motherhood I felt I've lacked so far--the warrior mother.

Now, hooray for that.

But also, it was devastating in a way. It meant my easy life of denial and fantasy started to melt away. My eyes started to see the affects of addiction. How lasting and long and painful addiction can be for loved ones. This education was a bitter pill, hard to look at, hurtful to swallow. I learned to see addiction the way John Bradshaw defines it, "An addiction is a pathological relationship with any mood-altering experience that has life-damaging consequences." Addictions can be behavior, emotions or chemical relationships. Addiction is how we medicate our loneliness and we all have them.

Including me.

And that's how I found myself in my church's 12 Step Addiction Recovery Program. First to heal myself from the chaos and havoc found in loving people with addictions and second, to come to terms with my own addiction (anger) and face it with recovery and sobriety and of course, God.

(I'm doing pretty well with that by the way, learning to stop the obsessive thoughts anger fires my way. Not that my ideas are wrong, or my pain isn't justified, it's learning to stop thinking I have no option but to FEEL ANGRY. I am learning I have a lot of options when I see wrongs--I have a voice, to begin with...)

I am so grateful for those who came forward with stories--not only for the ones I published but the ones I read privately. I think we have much more to express as it pertains to our addictions. Yours, mine, ours. Thank you for inspiring me to become better, even if it's requiring some hard looks at my core.

So that's where thing 34 took me--reading piles of books and discovering new light and feeling better in little increments. I'm feeling a little less control and little more compassion for myself. It's slow, but good. God is good. God is so good to me.

What did you think of the series?


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